Future of Academic Libraries: Taiga Forum 2011 Provocative Statements

Futures Thinking for Academic Librarians: Higher Education in 2025
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/issues/value/futures2025.pdf

Edited by Kara Malenfant (ACRL) with noted futurist David Staley. Not just statements about the future but also assessments on those statements by almost 400 ACRL members.

ACRL: Issues & Advocacy

Value of Academic Libraries
Increasing recognition of the value of libraries and librarians by leaders in higher education, information technology, funding agencies, and campus decision making is one of ACRL’s six strategic priorities. The current economic climate and the increased emphasis on assessment and outcomes have forced academic departments’ higher education administrators to make tough decisions regarding the funding of programs and units at their institutions. Recognizing the sense of urgency around this issue, ACRL is working to identify resources that will help members to demonstrate their value in clear, measurable ways.

Future of Academic Libraries: Taiga Forum 2011 Provocative Statements

From the Taiga Forum blog:

"On 11/1/2010, Taiga Forum 6 met in Palo Alto to begin developing a new set of provocative statements regarding some future challenges to academic libraries. Another group discussed the draft statements at ALA Midwinter in San Diego in January, 2011. The Taiga Forum Steering Committee has taken that input and created this third round of Taiga Forum Provocative Statements. As before, the statements are intended to provoke conversation rather than attempt to predict the future."

Here's one of the ten provocative statements:

"Within five years, graduate students and faculty will fill all their information needs online, never coming into the library, yet they will continue to idealize the library as a sacred place to commune with books. Libraries will respond by flipping their stacks into designer reading rooms that use books as decor."

And another:

"Within five years, libraries will be forced to acknowledge that our boutique services have been collecting 'in the basement.' To clean house, libraries will implement planned abandonment."

See: http://bit.ly/l1URO1

Bernie Sloan

The disgraceful interrogation of L.A. school librarians - LA Times (May 13, 2011)

If state education cuts are drastic, the librarians' only chance of keeping a paycheck is to prove they're qualified to be switched to classroom teaching. So LAUSD attorneys grill them.

The disgraceful interrogation of L.A. school librarians
By Hector Tobar
May 13, 2011
Los Angeles Times

"In a basement downtown, the librarians are being interrogated.

On most days, they work in middle schools and high schools operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District, fielding student queries about American history and Greek mythology, and retrieving copies of vampire novels.

But this week, you'll find them in a makeshift LAUSD courtroom set up on the bare concrete floor of a building on East 9th Street. Several sit in plastic chairs, watching from an improvised gallery as their fellow librarians are questioned.   <more>"

Wisconsin Protests Inspire Morello’s ‘Union Town’—Download It Free

Wis. Protests Inspire Morello’s ‘Union Town’—Download It Free
by James Parks, May 2, 2011  AFL-CIO NOW blog

'Singer Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine has always been a strong supporter of working people. Morello was so inspired after taking part in a demonstration and headlining  a concert in February [2011] for the protesters at the state Capitol in Madison, Wis., that he wrote what he calls “fighting songs.”'

"The EP will be released in digital form on May 17 and on CD and vinyl on July 19 under Morello’s new deal with New West Records. Proceeds from sale of the album will go to the America Votes Labor Unity Fund to support mobilization for pushing back against the state attacks on workers."

Check out an interview with Morello today at Politico.com here.